Lot# 8006

it was attached with a coiling dragon half-cent stamp, cancelled with a Shensi Yen'an prefecture stem-branch waist frame circled cds (Gengxu, September 17), transferred and cancelled with an unclear Shensi Sanyuan waist frame circled lunar year cds and Tientsin Chinese-English single-ringed cds. Upon arrival in Japan, it was cancelled with Nagasaki and Niigata Prefecture date postmarks.This is one of the important special formats of the Qing Dynasty 4th series postal cards: X-Y = 0.5mm, which means the top line of the postage symbol on the right is 0.5mm lower than the top line of the French text. There are only 11 surviving examples of this special format, making it a rare instance where this special format was actually used.